2004
JANUARY
FEBRUARY
MARCH
APRIL
MAY
JUNE
JULY  
AUGUST
SEPTEMBER
OCTOBER
NOVEMBER
DECEMBER

9-1-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

The little roller ball thingie on my mouse is very sticky and doesn't want to roll. My cats, Fritz, Furball, FuzzBottom and Murfreesboro all seem to like it just fine, otherwise. Do you have any ideas?

--Cat Lady in Katmandu

Dear Cat Lady:

It's important for your cats' mental health that your mouse be well maintained. Be sure to dismantle it at least once a week, clean the roller ball thingie in hot soapy water, blow out the inside with compressed air to remove hairballs and food crumbs and spray the interior with catnip oil to keep the moving parts operating freely before you reassemble it.

By the way, the mouse has other functions that you may not have discovered. If you ever buy a home computer be sure to write back for suggestions.

9-2-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

What are Easter eggs and how do I get some? Are these seasonal things, like Cadbury Creme Eggs?

--Festive in Fresno

Dear Festive:

The so-called "Easter eggs" are clever programs that bored software code writers design and hide inside major commercial software while they're waiting for their deadlines to slip by. Some of them are quite simple and innocent, like this one in Microsoft Word 2000:

1. Open Microsoft Word2000 
2. Press F1 
3. In the "What would you like to do?" window, type "Cast" (without the quotes, of course)
4. Click SEARCH 
5. Click the MICROSOFT OFFICE 2000 USER ASSISTANCE STAFF and the graphic in the neighboring screen and it will display a list of everyone who contributed to the dreadful state of the Word Help files. You can use this list to sue them individually or make them part of a class-action suit the next time you want information on setting margins and it brings up a sales pitch for Microsoft Money in Swedish.

Some Easter eggs are not quite as innocent. There's the "Dancing Nude Office Assistant" Easter egg, the "Mrs Gates and the Donkey" Easter egg and lots more I can't go into in a family publication. It's estimated that Windows applications contain over 30,000 cleverly hidden Easter eggs, and that they alone account for the difference in size between the fast, efficient Word 2.0 (675kb) and the elephantine Word 2000 (72.6GB).

9-3-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

What does a Screen Saver do? What's it saving? Do I need one? I'd rather have a Screen Duster.

--Fussy in Franklinton

Dear Fussy:

Screen savers are a throwback to the bad old days when all you saw on a screen was C:\> up in the corner and the only colors available were Whoops Green and Budweiser Barf Orange. Monitors back then were tiny, expensive and cranky, and if you left a screen full of type there while you went out to lunch you might return to find those words burned permanently into the phosphates or whatever on the inside of the tube. So people who worked with computers back then (nerds) would leave little signs on their computer monitors with clever phrases ("It's the Electrons, Stupid!") reminding themselves to turn off the monitors if they went away for any length of time. These signs came to be known generically as "screen saver notes," or simply screen savers.

Eventually color monitors came along and screen saver notes were no longer necessary, but computer technology had improved to the point where really clever, attractive, completely unnecessary screen savers could be created, so of course they were. Companies like After Dark made a fortune designing these exquisitely useless utilities. It's part of what makes America great.

As for screen dusters, I don't recall ever having heard of such a thing. I used to have a really nice utility that would clean the inside of the screen with a squeegee to keep excess photons from building up but I seem to have misplaced it.

9-4-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

Ok. I've consulted the gurus at CompUSA, Office Max, Office Depot, and Office Office, as well as those geniuses at Microsoft Tech Support (very overpriced, I might add), and the consensus seems to be that I need to clear my cash. I have worked long and hard to save this little nest egg for my golden years, and I'll be #@%$ if I'm going to just dump it all in the trash bin.

--Temper Tantrum in Tempe 

Dear TT:

This is a little out of my line, so I consulted Madame Olga at Gypsy_Tea_Room.com. She conjured up the appropriate spirits and she says that it's quite true. Apparently your CPU (Coronary Pacemaker Unit) was assembled by someone with bad mojo, and unless you have it cleared it's likely to bring you all manner of bad luck in the near future. She suggests you immediately send her the contents of your bank account to be cleansed in a formal Gypsy ritual and held in safekeeping to prevent further demonic infestation. In return she will send you the Magic Chicken Foot of Good Luck to protect you personally. Small bills only, please.

9-5-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

What's the method of choice for backing up files? I've been advised to use a CDRW device (whatever that is) but I've also been told that it means burning something. That sounds very unsafe. Are there less flammable ways to back up my 1500 stationery files and 1000 cat photos?

--Flame Retarded in Florabunda

Dear Flame Retarded:

Backing up is best done by the gradual application of gas while the vehicle is in the appropriate gear. Keep your eyes on the rear-view mirror at all times.

CDRW refers to the automatic transmission markings on a German car like a BMW (BischoffteschenMotorWagen). The "C" is I believe the sign for "Park," and the "W" is for what we call "Neutral," or perhaps vice-versa. The "D" and "R" are "Drive" and "Reverse," the same as in English. Burning out in reverse is extremely unsafe and is likely to cause the vehicle to spin out of control.

Why you would want to back up over all that stationery and all those kitty pictures is beyond me, unless you're caught up in a nasty divorce settlement and are doing it to spite your ex. In that case put it in "R" and floor the sucker.

9-6-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

Do you think I can find the man of my dreams using Matchmaker.com?

--Despairing in Des Plaines 

Dear Despairing:

I'm afraid you've been hitting the online Harlequin Romances a bit too hard. The chances of finding a soul mate through a Plug 'n Play database are about a slim as finding an honest lawyer, an honest politician, an honest used car salesman and an honest televangelist all rolled into one by answering an ad in the Personals column of the National Enquirer.

Let's face it: any man who's worth finding isn't sitting in front of a monitor on a Saturday night pretending to be a lonely good-looking millionaire with a fondness for overweight women with bad teeth and acne.

At the very least you should learn how to correctly interpret the postings you're going to find there. The following is Aunt Nettie's Personal Dictionary of Online Matchmaking Terms. Read them carefully and avoid yet another heartbreak.

Late 20s = Early 50s
Late 30s = Late 60s
Ageless = Over 70
Athletic = Watches the nude volleyball channel
Trustworthy = No parole violations so far
Broad-minded = Dirty Old Man
Great sense of humor = Pull his finger
Fun = Hilarious when drunk
Non-stop fun = Constantly drunk
Virile = Bald
Incurable romantic = HIV positive
Wealthy = Welfare client
Established = In prison
Lonesome = In solitary
Free spirit = Escaped from prison
Youthful Spirit = Hangs around playgrounds
Open to new ideas = Exposes himself in playgrounds
Devoted = Stalker
Adventurer = Homeless
Traditionalist = Lives with parents
Solid = 400+ pounds
Manly = Unwashed

9-7-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

What do you think of these "Get paid while you surf the Web" offers? Can I really Earn Big Money by just clicking on links?

--Stone Broke in Stony Brook

Dear Stone Broke:

Yes, and Mel Gibson is my live-in lover.

This is the bald-headed stepchild of the old swindle that used to involve stuffing envelopes for $10,000 a week that used to appear in the back pages of the Farmer's Home Companion, and appealed to farm wives driven daffy by long winters out on the prairie and the presence of unwashed farmhands.

It's the second cousin twice-removed of the classic American con game called 'The Three-Legged Horse,' which was popular around the 1840s, turning up again in Chicago in the 1870s as 'The Pegleg Stepchild," and during the 1920s as 'The Cross-eyed Gypsy,' (also called the '40-cent Pretzel,' the 'Bluebottle Mule,' and 'Auntie Caitlin's Runabout' in different parts of the country). In the 1930s it was briefly resurrected as the 'Hooverville Smokescreen,' and during the War it was 'Tojo's Comeuppance." In the '50s it was the 'Portable Skyscraper,' after which it sort of died a natural death as educational standards improved, until the rise of the Internet and what sociologists have been calling "The Renaissance of Gullibility." 

9-8-2000

Dear Ms Nettie:

Who the hell are YOU and how did I get HERE? I was trying to reach the AARP website and I got here by some nefarious route. I distinctly dislike being hijacked in cyberspace to see something I did not ask to see. If this happens again I will make a formal complaint to my local federal district attorney. Thank you. Do not do this again.

--Focused in Farthington

Dear Focused:

Well, it's plain as a pikestaff that dearauntnettie.com is a far cry from www.aarp.org, so I believe the problem must be in your unconscious mind. Ask yourself why you felt compelled to seek out Aunt Nettie's solace and consolation instead of the organized antiquity of AARP. The AARP is a fine organization I'm sure, whose slogan "Death Before Depends," says it all. Their role model is John Glenn, and they sincerely believe that older people can lead full, useful lives as test pilots, Olympic gymnasts and centerfold models, at least until the drooling and dementia become too obvious to disregard.

My own philosophy is considerably different, of course. Here at the Home we all belong to a different organization called COLS, or Corpses On Life Support. Membership is free, and the only requirement is that you have to have outlived your usefulness. Our role model is Jack Kevorkian, and our motto "Here Today, Gone Tomorrow If I Can Save Up Enough Pills" says it all. We sincerely believe that John Glenn is a space alien, and that the only way an old person can lead a useful life is if there's a sudden demand for doorstops that whimper a lot and can't remember anything after 1938.

9-9-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

Lately my cat, Murfreesboro, has been bringing up perfectly symmetrical hairballs. Are these valuable? Should I put them up on e-Bay?

--Mercenary in Metropolis

Dear Mercenary:

According to my reference guide, the majority of hairballs are symmetrical. Simple spherical or ovoid hairballs are so common as to be worthless. The number of regular facets determines the value.

A regular dodecahedron, for example, can be quite valuable depending on the color. The fabled "Eye of Kali" pure black dodecahedral hairball is insured for over $200,000 and is rarely displayed in this country.

All cat owners secretly hope to discover the near-legendary Blue Persian penrose-tiled hexahexaflexagon hairball. It would be worth its weight in rubies.

Source: Snark & Upchuck's "Hairball Valuation Tables." 
Also cf: "Diamonds on the Rug: Fifty of the World's Rarest Hairballs." (Illustrated) Hukahuka Publishers, Ltd. ( London and Bombay,1986)

9-10-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

I've been reading the manual that came with my computer, and it gives directions on how to start it up in "Safe Mode". My question is why on earth would I want to start it up in any other mode? Unsafe mode? Risky mode? Who the hell comes up with this stuff?

--Safety First in San Francisco 

Dear Safety:

Not all of us are wimps like yourself, sonny. The Safe Mode is for people who wear a belt with their suspenders and refuse to cross a street unless the little walkie man is lit up, even if there isn't a car within the same ZIP code. These people invariably know their cholesterol reading right down to the decimal points in the triglyceride column, and would no more think of bungee-jumping than they would think of voting Socialist.

For the rest of us, Microsoft has thoughtfully designed a variety of other interfaces which are progressively riskier, just to keep the old adrenaline pumping. The so-called "Normal" mode crashes every 17 minutes precisely, so that you can prepare for it. My favorite, "DynaMode," crashes randomly every 12 to 24 minutes. There are several third-party software programs that will show you the running odds of a crash in the next 30 seconds in DynaMode, but that's considered cheating by hard-core Windows fans.

For the real lava-surfing radicals out there Uncle Bill has designed "Xtreme" mode, where you can match your skills against a variety of software and hardware catastrophes in the hopes of reaching 1000 points and qualifying as a Windows ME beta tester.

9-11-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

I trust I can enlist your aid in my crusade to stamp out smut on the Internet. Regardless of how cautious one is, one can suddenly be faced with the most revolting subject matter through an inadvertent key combination whilst using a search engine. How could I have known that searching for "pony," "stud" and "Britney Spears" would bring up the Celebrity Bestiality Web site?

--Scandalized in Skaneateles

Dear Scandalized:

This is truly a problem, but I'm afraid I'm a bit old to be playing Crusader Rabbit. What I suggest you do for your own protection is do into Control Panel/ Settings/Internet Options and rack your Security settings as high as they'll go. Then invest in a product like NetNannie or CyberPatrol, and after it's installed set the filter level to "Teletubbies-- minus Tinky Winky." That should give you access to only the purest, Jerry Falwell-approved fare. You might also assign yourself a complicated password to bypass the filter, then immediately forget what it is, just to avoid temptation. Oh, and never accept cookies from strangers and you'll be just fine and dandy.

9-12-2000

Aunt Nettie, Liebling:

Wot is it you think about der idea of Interactive Telefunken -er, Television? Don't you tink fooling around mit your computer vhile vatching der TV is ein bit much?

--Hendrick the Hun in Hummaburg 

Dear Hendrick:

We've had Interactive TV for as long as I can remember. Just observe the male of the species watching a sports game. They yell, they scream, the cuss the players and they do odd voodoo rituals to influence the outcome.

Back in Redbone we even had interactive radio. Uncle Dunk used to sit on the front porch listening to his Philco and arguing with Roosevelt until the night he got so worked up over Social Security that he reinforced his argument with both barrels of his 10-gauge goose gun. If that's not interactivity I don't know what is.

9-13-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

When can I expect someone to empty the Recycle Bin? I have a bad back, you know, and I'm not allowed to do any heavy lifting.

--Lumbagoed in Lumpjaw

Dear Lumbagoed,

Well, this is certainly your lucky day. Aunt Nettie has developed a special software program that will empty your Recycle Bin in an environmentally friendly manner every Wednesday. For a flat fee of $120 (or a weekly subscription of $5.00), this program will eliminate the need for this messy, strenuous and time-consuming task. All major credit cards accepted. Payment information is being sent under separate cover for your protection. After you sign up, remember that alternate side of the keyboard mouse-parking rules will be in force every Wednesday for the convenience of our clean-up crews.

9-14-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

At last count, I have received 50 AOL CDs, 32 Earthlink CDs, 4 Compuserve CDs and a selection of Slim Whitman's greatest hits, all of them unsolicited (except maybe my husband Fatso ordered Slim, I'm not sure about that one.)

Can you make a few suggestions as to what I could do with them? I'm an arts and crafty kind of person, and surely there's more can be done with them besides creating the world's largest coaster collection.

--Crafty in Crabapple Cove

Dear Crafty:

Buy an 8-foot weather balloon from a surplus store. Inflate it completely. Using a hot glue gun or epoxy, attach all the AOL disks, shiny side out, to each other-- NOT to the balloon. After the balloon is completely covered with CDs, deflate the balloon and remove it through one of the holes in the CDs.

Makes the greatest mirror-ball for disco parties you've ever seen.

9-15-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

Lately I've been getting weird telephone calls. It rings only once, whether or not I answer. The calls don't come together, but are scattered throughout the day and night. No person or machine is on the other end (even if I pick up the receiver quickly), and *69 doesn't report a call. What could be causing them?

--Perplexed in Pasadena

Dear Perplexed:

Hmmmm... sounds like the "Phantom Caller of Altoona," a poor wretch who was trapped inside a phone booth on the Pennsylvania Turnpike in January of 1951, when phone booths were made of solid steel and 911 didn't exist. A snowplow clearing the Turnpike buried the booth completely while he was in it. He had only one dime, but couldn't think of anyone to call for help. Worse yet, whenever he *did* call someone at random, he was so afraid of wasting his only call that he immediately hung up after the first ring so his dime would be returned.

His last desperate act was to call the number scrawled on the wall of the phone booth under the words "For a good time call Myrtle." At least I'll die happy, he thought. His pleasure turned to horror when he realized that he was the victim of a prank, for the person he reached was the nearly deaf night watchman of a tree nursery, who thought he was taking down an after-hours order for a rush shipment of crepe myrtle to the Pennsylvania Turnpike Authority.

Since the call had gone through his dime was not returned and he perished miserably. His body wasn't found until the following spring.

His spirit roams the world today, drifting from phone booth to phone booth, where he repeats that same action, dialing a random number and hanging up after a single ring. Some psychics say that his soul will be at rest only if someone (preferably a woman) answers the phone after the first ring with the saving words, "This is Myrtle."

Source: "The Big Book of Ghost Stories Involving Telephone and Telegraph Equipment," Elisha Gray, editor. Psychic Hotline Publishers, London & Bombay, 1958.

9-16-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

Something is terribly wrong here. I was writing a letter to my sister-in-law (who thinks she knows EVERYTHING about computers) and I wanted to copy a cute quotation I found while surfing and paste it into the letter I was writing and... well... now there's Krazy Glue all over the monitor and I can't finish the letter. And caannn yoooou imaginnnne howwww undiggggggggnified it is to tyyyype with mmmy nnnose???

--Stuck in St. Paul

Dear Stuck:

DearAuntNettie is a 100% blond-joke-free Web site. Please take your silly sense of humor elsewhere.

9-17-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

I am excited about the new Pentium 4 chipsets about to hit the market. Can you settle a bet I made with a so-called "Computer Guru"? His claim is that the new P-4 is just "2 Pentium II processors soldered together." I went out on a limb, and bet him five hundred dollars and one evening with my wife that his claim was untrue.

--Gambler in Galveston

Dear Gambler:

Well, your wife's honor is safe, which is more than I can say for your own. You can't solder silicon, silly.

9-18-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

Do you do your own laundry at Living Dead R Us? Do they lose socks the way most of us do? And what happens to them anyway?

--Mismatched in Missoula

Dear Mismatched:

No, thank heavens, the people here at Living Dead "R " Us take care of all those distracting details that would get in the way of our absolute boredom. It allows us to concentrate on more important things like watching the picture roll over on the TV set in the Wreck Room. The laundry is staffed by Eastern-looking people who are imported by the container-load from some place like Outer Mongolia by the thrifty souls who run the Home. In return for 18-hour workdays and locked dormitories they are given a chance to experience life in the land of freedom and opportunity. Occasionally one of them will set forth into the outside world to seek his fortune, providing he can make it past the dogs and the razor wire.

As for socks, everyone knows that modern washing machines have a special cycle that sends one sock per load into interstellar space to appease the warlords of the planet Kumquat. For the full story go to the Bureau of Missing Socks at www.funbureau.com. 

9-19-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

I've been reading about this Linux person, and I am very confused. He looks most suspiciously like a penguin - how did he suddenly sprout feathers? And, most sinister of all, WHAT HAPPENED TO HIS SECURITY BLANKET??

--Marcy in Morgantown 

Dear Marcy:

You're obviously confusing Linus Van Pelt, the "Peanuts" cartoon character whose creator recently went to HIS Creator, with Opus, the Penguin from the extinct comic strip "Bloom County."

Opus was downsized when his strip was bought up by a multinational comedy conglomerate, so he took his severance package and used it to found a startup software company with the intention of destroying his longtime nemesis Microsquish. To his delight, he has made significant advances against the monster, and wishes me to convey to you his best wishes, and remind you that with Linux, unlike Windows, you don't need a security blanket.

9-20-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

I am often prompted by my computer as well as those heathens at Microsoft Support to select one icon or another to get things fixed or running. I am a God-fearing Protestant, by gosh darn, and there will be no icons selected on MY computer. What was the Reformation for anyway, if not to overcome this idolatrous adoration of symbols over substance?

--Calvinist in Calavaras

Dear Calvinist:

This situation came about when Graphically Linked User Interfaces, or GLUIs, were invented in Russia under the Czar. The Yabloko company thought it would be a nifty idea if their users could simply run their mutzskis over to an ikon and either click on it for technical support or light a candle in front of it for spiritual support. The Yabloko Makintovaritch was a great success and was later copied extensively in the West, although they soon ran out of gold leaf and were forced to use a 16-color palette instead, which the Russians thought was highly unorthodox.

If you seriously don't want to use icons you'll be thought of as a bit of an iconoclast, naturally, and you'll have to switch back to the Old High DOS (Deo Omnnium Surfalorum) operating system. You can download a copy from www.vatican.va. Don't be incensed if they charge you for it.

9-21-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

I read the letter you received from that yahoo who thought his computer was possessed. Nice answer.

I have a slightly different problem. I think my computer is just plain haunted. Have you ever encountered a ghost trying to operate your computer? If so, had you know him/her personally? Did you convince it to go bother someone else, or did you learn to live in harmony with it?

--Haunted in Harrisburg 

Dear Haunted:

With all the software programmers dying at their workstations from stress-related ailments, it's no wonder there's been a sharp rise in the number of reported computer hauntings. Many of these poor departed souls aren't aware that they're dead, and simply think that Windows is taking a particularly long time to load.

The great majority of these hauntings are benign, and evidence themselves in simple ways like the mouse cursor moving without anyone touching it, or your sound system suddenly switching from Backstreet Boys to a very distant and hollow-sounding Boxcar Willie. If you ignore them they usually go away.

More dangerous by far are spirits that are lucky enough to find themselves in a computer with a Voodoo video card. These cards, assembled in Haiti by non-union zombies, give even a benign spirit awesome powers over the computer user. If you find yourself suddenly finishing a business letter in fluent Creole, or wonder what Erzulie's e-mail address is, then you know you've got big trouble. Some careless people have even allowed themselves to be taken over by a Voodoo video driver, which is a sight to see. If you think you've got one, my advice is to go straight to www.3dfx.com and click on "Ask the Online Houngan" for suggestions on placating the spirit. Be prepared to lay out a lot of money and rum.

Sources:

"A Specter is Haunting Texas Instruments" by V. I. Lovegraft (London & Bombay, 1984)

"The .exe-orcist" by Willie Peter Bladder (New York and Bombay, 1972)

9-22-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

I am having a terrible time with passwords. Every time I get a prompt to "Remember Password" I click on it, but it hasn't seemed to help me remember the passwords at all. I'm afraid this will only get worse as I get older. How do YOU remember your passwords?

--Forgetful in Fort Givens 

Dear Forgetful:

Passwords used to bother me a lot, too, until I realized that the answer to the problem had been staring me in the face all along. So I changed all my passwords to "Remember Password" and I haven't had any problems since.

9-23-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

I was looking at the picture of you on your Web page. Tell me, are those your breasts or your knees?

--Anatomically Amazed in Ann Arbor

Dear AA:

At some point in the past they merged and have been indistinguishable ever since.

9-24-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

I spillced coffcee cincto my kcey boardc.c As a rcesulct, c's gcet inctermixcced with cwactever I ctypce. Canc ycou tell cme the bcest way cto cclean it?

--Buttercfingers in cButte

Dear Buttercfingers:

Now, normally I don't get too involved with letters from foreigners, unless they really get me riled up like our French friend who pops up every now and then in these pages. Especially if they don't have the common decency to write in English, God's own language.

However, I had just installed the latest version of BabbleOn, the new translation program, when I received your missive, and I thought I would let BabbleOn take a whack at it. Here's what came out the other end:

"Esteem[ed] crumb, it is [to have] the ants. Nowhere Tuesday, [the] milkmaid [dispossesses?] all enough. [Let us] prevaricate among the goats, [among] the lonesome (goats). Where goat is, [dreaming?] flows. Lycanthropy."

I think I can safely say that translation technology has a ways to go before it's ready for prime time.

However, just to be malicious, I ran the "translation" through the Grammatik, Anagram Generator and Haiku Helper software programs and came up with this:

Honorable ant
Swept away from the table 
In housemaid's hurry 

Lies upon mohair 
An abandoned goatish coat 
A wolf in next life?

Which I believe answers your question. 

9-25-2000

Chere Tante Nettie:

I have seen zeez so-called "MIME" types on zee Intairnet and zee e-mail pages. It eez a... how you say? TRAVESTY!!!

--Marcel en Marseilles 

Dear Marcel:

Well, we're hearing from the French contingent again, so I guess the snail harvest must be over. Time to shell 'em and cook up a big mess of slugburgers, eh? "Pardon me, do you have any grey poop on the griddle?"

<shudder!> 

And you're off the mark as usual, Froggy. MIME has nothing to do with Marceau, who happens to be very popular here at the Home, I might add. We have all his records, and it's a real treat sitting around listening to "The Man in the Glass Box" after the medications are given out in the evening.

MIME stands for Mrs. Iverson's Mail Encryption, which Mildred Iverson developed back in Redbone so her hubby, Grendel, wouldn't find out that she'd been carrying on behind his back. Grendel wasn't the sharpest stake in the vampire, as we used to say, and he probably never knew anything funny was going on. He didn't even think it was peculiar that they had moved from Wisconsin to Arkansas and they still had the same milkman. Or that their house was the only one in Redbone where the mailman stopped by on Sundays. Or that the guy who mowed the lawn would show up in the middle of January.

Anyway, just to be on the safe side, Milly developed this elaborate code to inform her swains of Grendel's whereabouts, and to time their visits so they wouldn't find out about each other. After we developed the Internet in Redbone, we just naturally adapted her code for the purposes of encryption, and then the rest of the world borrowed it from us.

If you'd like to read up on the subject of encryption, I strongly recommend

 "ØëFÁ1æa¬§§Ø€l5ØJ·^ž·c£pÚ'îv5," by ÊËEÖY è&Ž‡:êØ. 

I believe it's available in French as well as English.

9-26-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

Does my hard drive get heavier when I put more data on it?

--Weight Watcher in Wichita 

Dear Weight:

By all means! The little "zeros" don't weigh anything, of course, but the "ones" are, of course, units, as in "units of measure," and they can pack the pounds on your hard drive faster than you can say Jack Robinson. Why do you think hard drives have to be bolted in place? Why, a 10 GB (gross byte) hard drive can weigh as much as 121 pounds when it's completely filled.

However, you are not completely at the mercy of a greedy hard drive. Under separate cover I am forwarding you the post office box number where you can send $49.95 + S&M for a copy of Aunt Nettie's "Miracle Weight State Cure," as featured in the pages of the Maine state computer journal, Byte ME©, as well as the Software Developer's Column in the Weekly World News. After a single session you'll notice sleeker folders, fully contoured shortcuts and backups that are positively pert. Cash only, please.

9-27-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

All of the CD programs I try to use begin with the instruction to "install and run". I'm too old to run, dammit, so is it ok to install and sit instead?

--Stationary in Staten Island 

Dear Stationary:

You have to realize that "run" is simply a metaphor in this case. You can amble, mosey, jog, shuffle, saunter, mince, lollygag, dawdle, meander or dilly-dally with equal effectiveness. In England you can traipse or mope, and in Australia you can go walkabout or waltz matilda. Installing and sitting is not recommended, however, especially for upgrades.

Source: "The Sedentary Guru: Alternatives to Running Software Programs" by Sir Meerschaum Squeeze. Weaselword Press (London & Bombay, 1999)

9-28-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

Make this Comet Cursor GO AWAY!

--Hale Bopp at Heaven's Gate 

Dear Hale:

What you refer to is the dreaded My Comet Cursor viroid, a particularly insidious piece of deviltry that was thought up by some hackers annoyed that they had flunked out of a Dale Carnegie seminar. If you accidentally log onto a Web site infected with this viroid, it will immediately install itself without so much as a "by your leave." It will then search for all your personal information, package it up and mail it to people who want to sell you things like Slim Whitman records, Bulgarian software and nude pictures of Mother Teresa. It's popularly known as the "syphilis of software."

Worse yet, there's no way to remove the little bugger from your system without dismantling your hard drive and sanding down each platter, then dipping it in a solution of boiling industrial bleach, a treatment I personally would like to inflict on its creators.

At least they named it right. Anyone who downloads it curses like a longshoreman.

9-29-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

I'm overwhelmed by the sheer number of computer books on the shelves of the local bookstores. Which are your favorites?

--Literate in Lithuania 

Dear Literate:

I do try to keep up with literature, although it's increasingly difficult as my glass eye is overdue for maintenance. I'm afraid that contemporary computer-themed books are nowhere near as good as the classics. My favorites, in no particular order, are:

1. "The Old Man and the C:\>" by Ernie Hemmingway, a stirring tale of an old man's attempts to come to grips with pre-Windows computing.

2. "Squeak, Memory," Vlad Nabokov's semi-autobiographical account of his battles with interrupt conflicts and the PS/2 mouse.

3. "The.dlliad," Homer's account of the struggles of early Windows programmers to reach a consensus on library protocols.

4. "BeOSwulf," which records the efforts of a small band of operating system designers to overcome the Monster from Redmond.

5. "David Coppermine," L'il Dicken's heartwarming story of the challenge to exploit 0.18 micron chip fabrication technology.

6. "Member of the Web Ring," Kit Carson McCruller's poignant story of a young girl's desire for membership in an exclusive circle.

7. "The Newsgroup," M. McCarthy's exposé of life online, warts and all.

8. "Gone with the Windows," the story of a feisty young widow's attempt to rebuild after a catastrophic system crash.

9. "No One Writes to the Kernel," the powerful Garcia-Marquez epic of software program editing.

10. "Decline and Fall of the Redmond Empire," Gibbon's history of the final days of Microsoft.

9-30-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

I was impressed with the list of your favorite computer-related books. Many of them are my favorites as well. I was wondering if you had a similar list of your favorite computer-themed films?

--Cinephile in Cincinnati 

Dear Cinephile:

I don't get out to the picture shows as much as I used to, but here's a list that I think would be a great starting place for a collection of classic CPU flicks:

1. "DOS Boot." The original and still the best account of the war between competing operating systems in the early days.

2. "Star Warez," a swashbuckling story of piracy on the high C++s, as hackers attempt to subvert copy protection on best-selling programs.

3. "Schindler's Listserv,"  a gripping story about a lone man's attempt to secretly build an e-mail subscriber base during wartime.

4. "Raiders of the Lost Architecture." An unscrupulous megacorporation searches the world for promising software, which it buys up and destroys.

5. "FAT Club." A group of men work out their aggressions by trying to break the organization of hard drives.

6. "2001GB: A DriveSpace Oddity." Surrealistic history of the hard drive, from its humble beginnings through today's powerhouses.

7. "Tetris Driver." A Vietnam vet is obsessed with finding a way to run a popular game on his Amiga.

8. "Silence of the Amps." A crazed former psychiatrist devours sound system boosters until stopped by an FMI agent.

9. "Rear Windows." Driven to desperation by repeated system freezes, a young man begins a criminal career by mooning monitors.

10. "Saving Ryan's Pirates." Breathtaking account of a young boy's war to keep his MP3 downloads safe from the RIAA.

2004
JANUARY
FEBRUARY
MARCH
APRIL
MAY
JUNE
JULY  
AUGUST
SEPTEMBER
OCTOBER
NOVEMBER
DECEMBER